At least one example embodiment of inventive concepts relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly, relate to a power management integrated circuit for supplying load current information and/or an electronic device having the same.
A power circuit is a circuit for driving various electronic devices. Nowadays, as the use of mobile devices increases, the demand for high efficiency DC-DC converters increases. It is desirable to use DC-DC converters in which an effect of a resistor component is minimized to reduce power consumption caused by a voltage drop across the resistor. One way to do so is to employ a switching converter, which uses an inductor for easily obtaining a target level of voltage while minimizing power consumption.
The switching converter includes a buck converter to transform a high direct current (DC) voltage into a lower DC voltage and a boost converter to boost the DC voltage. The switching converter that uses an inductor has a lower power consumption than the DC-DC converter using a resistor, and thus, the switching converter may have a high energy efficiency. Further, the DC-DC converter may include a low drop-out (LDO) regulator composed of a linear regulator.
Recent power management integrated circuits (PMICs) integrate the above mentioned regulators to supply power to load devices. However, the PMIC in a mobile device should provide real-time power information to the load devices to reduce power consumption and improve performance of the load devices.